BeerBorg

Having had a few or Roger's beers before and really enjoying them, I knew I was in for a treat. I was not disappointed.
First, look at the meringue head on this sucker and that's not from too much carbonation! 1/2" of this stayed with the beer to the end.
This is a fine ass beer in many respects but it just tastes good. It's light but tasty, has the perfect amount of bitterness and the taste is pretty much the same all the way through. The bitterness is somewhat different to me and I don't know if this is the correct word for it but I'll use it any way.....tart. I mean this in only a good way. The dictionary will make bitter sound worse than tart but when talking about beer, I think tart describes this better. Think of lemon tart...you don't say lemon bitter, do you?

But, I digest It's very evident that the hop usage with late minute additions and hop standing show up in this beer. I can't say I've had any like this so I feel confident saying I definitely see the difference. The only thing I'm not yet 100% sure of yet is the aroma with hop standing vs. dry hopping. This has a mild, sweet aroma and not a very hoppy one and based on my massive dry hopped beers, I'm still thinking the dry hopping may add more aroma. But, in defense of this beer, I'm not sure it's supposed to have mega aroma.

The only complaint I can give this beer is it's all gone. Roger, thanks for sharing this one and opening my eyes to hop standing. Tomorrow we'll do a beer with a mini hop stand that we hope is half this good.

Thank you for the kind words Paul. I really wasn't after anything in particular with this beer I was experimenting with something I haven't tried before. This is actually more aroma than I have ever achieved dry hopping. But I have never dry hopped with more than 2 ounces.

I simply spoke the truth. Might fine stuff. You should enter that in a competition. Can't believe it wouldn't get you a ribbon.

Looks light, crisp and tart - I know exactly what you mean.

And I love those bottles! I have a few of them, too.

looks almost as light as a witbier! and i do love witbiers, and any wheat beer for that matter.

philm00x wrote:looks almost as light as a witbier! and i do love witbiers, and any wheat beer for that matter.

It is pretty much the same grain bill as a witbier. My preference is white wheat, I like the taste of it better than regular malted wheat and I like how it looks. Grain bill was 6lbs 2 row, 3lbs white wheat. I actually prefer a 50/50 bill but I got tired of dealing with stuck sparges. I think this bill stands up better to my hop experiments anyway.

I do prefer the lighter taste of white wheat better than regular wheat malt, as well. The grain bill I helped JimH put together on an AG version of his Murican Wheat is actually based on the fact that the Muntons wheat DME he used is 55% wheat, 45% barley. With batches as small as 2.5 gallons, I've never experienced a stuck sparge, but I'm sure if I were to scale it up to 5 gallons or more, I might be more inclined to add rice hulls. The Murican Wheat uses regular wheat malt, but I bet if I swapped white wheat for it, and turned the ratio up to 60 wheat/40 barley, it'd be more witbier-esque.

That is one nice-looking beer. Well done, Roger (and Ralph).

Good review, too, Paul. It makes me wonder what hop-standing and dry hopping would bring to a beer. It would have to be a certain style to get the most out of it, I'm sure, but the two techniques are not mutually exclusive, are they?